The Squid's Ear Magazine


Threadgill, Henry Zooid: This Brings Us To, Volume II (Pi Recordings)

Threadgill's 2nd Volume with Jose Davila, Liberty Ellman, Elliot Humberto Kavee, and Stomu Takeishi, intelligent and cutting-edge music exploring the boundaries of composition & improvisation.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Henry Threadgill-flute and alto saxophone

Liberty Ellman-guitar

Jose Davila-trombone and tuba

Stomu Takeishi-bass

Elliot Humberto Kavee-drums


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UPC: B0042EJDAI

Label: Pi Recordings
Catalog ID: PI 36
Squidco Product Code: 13574

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2010
Country: USA
Packaging: Digipack
Recorded by Andy Taub in November 2008 at Brooklyn recording, Brooklyn, NY

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"Henry Threadgill is one of the most highly respected composers and conceptualists in music today having been the recipient of a Guggenheim Fellowship in 2003 and a United States Artist Fellowship in 2008. He was an early member of the influential Association for the Advancement of Creative Musicians (AACM) and has been a popular bandleader for almost 40 years. At the age of 66, when most musicians have long settled into a comfort zone playing music that caters to expectations, Threadgill, without any consistent institutional support, continues to challenge himself to create new cutting-edge music that expand the possibilities of interaction between composition and improvisation.

The two volumes of This Brings Us To are the culmination of eight years of working with Threadgill's band Zooid to perfect a new system of group improvisation. When naming the albums, Threadgill insisted that they be named Volume I and II because he saw them as two parts that make up the whole of where Zooid was at the time of the recording. The recording session captures the band in peak form right after they returned to New York from a long European tour that gave them an extended opportunity to negotiate and really live with this intricate and cutting-edge music. The two volumes also represent the two sets that the band performed live while on tour.

Threadgill's groundbreaking compositions for Zooid are organized along a series of interval blocks, each of which is assigned to a musician who is free to move around within these intervals, improvising melodies and creating counterpoint to one another. The system provides the framework for open dialogue within the group while encouraging the musicians to seek new ways to improvise, away from a reliance on chord changes, scales or any of the clichés of certain "free" jazz. To pull it all off, Threadgill demands that his musicians dedicate themselves fully to mastering this new language. The members of Zooid: Threadgill on flute and alto saxophone, Liberty Ellman on acoustic guitar, Jose Davila on trombone and tuba, Stomu Takeishi on acoustic bass guitar, and Elliot Humberto Kavee on drums, have been together for ten years, the longest of any of Threadgill's many bands. Their commitment results in music that finds its place in that perfect tipping point between thinking and feeling, intellect and intuition. This Brings Us To invites the listener to dissect and understand while reveling in its riches."-Pi Recording


Artist Biographies

"Henry Threadgill (born February 15, 1944) is a Pulitzer Prize-winning American composer, saxophonist and flautist, who came to prominence in the 1970s leading ensembles with unusual instrumentation and often incorporating a range of non-jazz genres.

Threadgill studied at the American Conservatory of Music in Chicago, majoring in piano, flute, and composition. He studied piano with Gail Quillman and composition with Stella Roberts. He has been a bandleader and composer for over forty years. He was awarded the 2016 Pulitzer Prize in Music for his composition In for a Penny, In for a Pound, which premiered at Roulette Intermedium on December 4, 2014

Threadgill has performed and recorded with several ensembles: Air, Aggregation Orb, Make a Move, the seven-piece Henry Threadgill Sextett, the twenty-piece Society Situation Dance Band, Very Very Circus, X-75, and Zooid."

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Threadgill)
2/7/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Based in Brooklyn New York, guitarist / composer Liberty Ellman has performed and or recorded with a host of stand out creative artists including: Joe Lovano, Myra Melford, Wadada Leo Smith, Butch Morris, Vijay Iyer, Steve Lehman, Greg Osby, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Nels Cline, Somi, Matana Roberts, Ledisi, Michele Rosewoman, Adam Rudolph, Josh Roseman, Barney McAll, Okkyung Lee, Steven Bernstein, Ben Goldberg and John Zorn. In 2014 Ellman worked with Jason Moran on Luanda Kinshasa, a video installation by visionary filmmaker Stan Douglas.

Mr. Ellman is perhaps best known for his long tenure in Henry Threadgill's groundbreaking ensemble, Zooid. The group has recorded several critically lauded albums. Their most recent recording "In For A Penny, In For A Pound" earned a Pulitzer prize for Mr. Threadgill. In addition to playing guitar, Mr. Ellman is credited as producer and mixing engineer on that recording. He has mixed and mastered many other recordings as well, including Gregory Porter's "Be Good," which was nominated for a Grammy.

Ellman has released 4 of his own critically acclaimed albums: Orthodoxy, Tactiles, Ophiuchus Butterfly, and 2015's Radiate on Pi Recordings. His compositional style has been described as "At once highly controlled and recklessly inventive," and the Wall Street Journal said: "Ellman, along with his peers, is helping to define post millennial jazz." Voted #1 Rising Star Guitarist in the 2016 Downbeat Critics Poll, he was also honored in the 2015 Jazz Times expanded critics poll, as one of the four guitarists of the year alongside Bill Frisell, John Scofield and Julian Lage.

Liberty Ellman has also worked beyond the jazz world: hip hop artists Midnight Voices, and The Coup, dance producer DJ Joe Claussell, and worked on remixes of N'Dea Davenport, Chico Freeman, Ann Dyer, Ayo and others. He also made an appearance on the Grammy nominated Groove Collective record, People People Music Music."

-Liberty Ellman Website (http://www.libertyellman.com/bio/)
2/7/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Tuba player and trombonist Jose Davila is a versatile New York-based musician whose work spans across a broad spectrum of musical genres; everything from traditional to cutting-edge jazz, to salsa and classical music. He is currently a member of Henry Threadgill's Zooid and bands led by guitarist Liberty Ellman and alto saxophonist Steve Lehman. His work with both Threadgill and Ellman extends the tuba from its traditional role as part of the rhythm section to a front-line solo voice. His playing can also be heard on the Grammy-nominated salsa recording "Un Gran Dia en el Barrio” from the Spanish Harlem Orchestra and "Remembranzas” and "Siguendo la Tradicion” from Soneros del Barrio.

Davila has also worked in the bands of Ray Charles, Andrew Hill, Tito Puente, Celia Cruz, Marc Anthony, Eddie Palmieri, Ray Anderson, Butch Morris, Ted Nash, along with the Lincoln Center Afro Latin Jazz Orchestra and the American Symphony and New York City Opera Orchestras.

A native of Puerto Rico who was raised on the East Coast, Jose received his formal musical training from the University of Connecticut and Mannes College of Music."

-Pi Recordings (https://pirecordings.com/artist/Jose_Davila)
2/7/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Stomu Takeishi (born 1964, in Mito, Ibaraki Prefecture, Japan) is a Japanese jazz bass player. He generally plays fretless five-string electric bass guitar, as well as a Klein five-string acoustic bass guitar. He often uses looping or other electronic techniques to enhance the sound of his instrument.

Takeishi began as a koto player. He came to the United States in 1983 to attend the Berklee College of Music in Boston, Massachusetts. After completing his degree in 1986, he moved to Manhattan to continue his studies at The New School. He has lived in New York City ever since.

In the 1990s he began to achieve prominence as an innovative New York jazz bass player, and critics have noted both his adventurous playing and sensitivity to sound and timbre. He has played in many international jazz festivals and often performs at major venues in New York, the United States, and Europe.

He has performed and/or recorded with Don Cherry, Henry Threadgill, Butch Morris, Dave Liebman, Randy Brecker, Wynton Marsalis, Paul Motian, Myra Melford, Cuong Vu, Badal Roy, David Tronzo, Erik Friedlander, Satoko Fujii, Laszlo Gardony, Ahmad Mansour and Andy Laster.

In Downbeat's 57th Critics Poll in 2009, Stomu was the poll winner in the category of Electric Bass, Rising Star.

He has been performing all over Mexico with MOLE (Hernan Hecht at drums, Mark Aanderud at piano.)"

-Wikipedia (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stomu_Takeishi)
2/7/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Elliot Humberto Kavee has performed/recorded ground-breaking new music with Omar Sosa, Joseph Jarman, Henry Threadgill, Steve Coleman, Don Cherry, Cecil Taylor, Francis Wong, Ben Goldberg, John Tchicai, Glenn Horiuchi, Elliot Sharp, Tim Berne, Jon Jang, Rudresh Mahanthappa, Vijay Iyer, and his own projects. Before moving to New York, he was the drummer of choice among the San Francisco Bay Area's most gifted creative musicians, playing on over 40 critically acclaimed recordings. In addition, Kavee was a musician, composer, musical director, actor and writer with the Tony award-winning San Francisco Mime Troupe for seven years - the only musical director in the group's 40 year history to win a dramalogue award. He was a percussionist, cellist and composer with the Club Foot Orchestra, who performed their score for G.W. Pabst's Pandora's Box at Lincoln Center. His collaboration with Asian-American Jazz pioneer Francis Wong has yielded 20 recordings and countless performances. As a founding member of the trail-blazing Omar Sosa Sextet, Kavee recorded four CD's and has toured the world. For his debut recording as a solo performer (on Eliasound records), "not only did Kavee make his skin and metallic percussion instruments sing by effecting a polytimbral/polyrhythmic approach, he further mixed up the program by doubling on cello. (Yes: drums and strings, one player, at the same time.")"- SF Weekly

-SF Weekly (https://pirecordings.com/artist/Elliot+Humberto_Kavee)
2/7/2025

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Lying Eyes 10:04

2. This Brings Us To 6:33

3. Extremely Sweet William 8:10

4. Polymorph 11:32

5. It Never Moved 7:15

Related Categories of Interest:

Pi Records

Improvised Music
Jazz
NY Downtown & Metropolitan Jazz/Improv
Quintet Recordings
Jazz & Improvisation Based on Compositions

Search for other titles on the label:
Pi Recordings.


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